AU Blog

High Altitude View Bad News: A two to three-year episode of warm water and low ocean productivity has resulted in lower numbers of chinook (king) salmon coastwide. Southeast Alaska’s king salmon annual limit is derived in most years by the Abundance Index (AI). The AI is a complex calculation that uses all kinds of…

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Observations on Clothes and Climate on the North Pacific: Packing for your fishing trip to Sitka and wondering what to bring? Here are a few observations and suggestions based on 30 years of guiding on the North Pacific. The temperature tells only part of the story. Yes, 58 or 60 degrees doesn’t sound that cold,…

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For all of us at Angling Unlimited, May can’t come soon enough. Long bright spring days replace long dark winter nights. The fishing shifts into gear with an exciting combination of king salmon, halibut, lingcod, and rockfish. The captains and crew are fresh and eager to do what we love doing – taking our guests…

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Greek word baros which means pressure. Trauma is the Greek word for “wound”. In our fishing in Alaska, the principle group of fish that barotrauma applies to are rockfish which have a gas filled swim bladder. This gases in the swim bladder are slowly extracted from the blood stream. The purpose of the swim bladder is…

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In 2013 we enjoyed an unprecedented stretch of warm sunny days during mid-summer in Southeast Alaska. Fishing in t-shirts at 8 AM is not common on the North Pacific, but it was in 2013. We also had a spectacular summer of fishing. The initial meteorological description was the “ridiculously resilient ridge” (RRR), a large…

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The Halibut regulations for 2018 are set: Daily Limit: One per angler Size: Under 38 inches or over 80 inches No annual limit Halibut fishing has been on a steady upswing for nearly a decade off Sitka. That’s why the recommendation to significantly decrease the harvest for 2018 from the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC)…

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Can a fish make a person laugh? Yes. I’ve seen it countless times, whether it’s casting streamer flies or dropping jigs next to a kelp bed. The laughter breaks out as dozens of black rockfish blast out from their cover, sometimes all the way to the surface, to attack lures or flies. As more and…

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1.Airfare – Book it early and get a shot at some of the best airfare packages of the year. Some great airline deals that are currently running for May 2018 (prices as of Dec 1st): from MPLS on Delta $674 from New York on Delta $633 from Portland on Delta $380 from Los Angeles on…

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We know how much the captain means to our anglers. We’re careful about everyone we hire, but we’re most careful about captains for a lot of reasons – safety, quality of the experience, fish production, and care of our equipment. For 2018, we’ll have two new captains and Captain Sarah who will be moving to…

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James Teal was born in 1991 to Doris and Tom Teal. He grew up in Breckenridge, Colorado, with the outdoors being ingrained in him throughout his childhood. He learned to ski at age 3 and received his first dirt bike on his 6th birthday; those two activities have dominated his free time ever since.…

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Jack was born in Roseville, MN to Kurt and Anna Barnick. He caught his first fish, a bluegill, at age 4 and claims he hasn’t really put a rod down since. Jack became interested in Alaska after seeing pictures of the wildlife, the scenery, and, of course, the fishing. Jack claims that venturing to Sitka…

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Alaska Department of Fish and Game (ADFG) divides rockfish into two categories with separate regulations: pelagic rockfish and demersal shelf rockfish (DSR). Our anglers often ask what the terms mean. Let’s start with pelagic. The term comes from the Greek pélagos, which means open sea. The zone of the ocean considered pelagic includes everything from…

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Our clients spend 10 hours a day with their captain who is responsible for their safety, their catch, and making it all enjoyable. We’ve enjoyed great continuity at the helm over the years, but 2017 marked the last season for Captain Bo Breuner and Captain Eric Meiland (The Viking) Bo first fished with AU as…

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The 2017 season began with Hook It and Cook It in mid-May and finished nearly four months later on September 10. A run down of various stretches of the season are available by looking through this year’s fishing reports. Here’s the high-level summary of the season and the grades earned: Kings Salmon: D We…

Silvers in Randomland The silver has gone from an automatic to a bit more work for the past two weeks. The fish are mainly offshore – meaning in deep water on their migratory routes. They aren’t heavily schooled and concentrated over bait. Speaking of which, there isn’t a major baitfish concentration offshore and we’re…

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The fishing world and the corporate world have some pretty clear dividing lines. One that often comes up is when someone asks if Chuck and I hold a formal captains’ meeting each day during which we then designate where each boat goes fishing. I’m occasionally asked if my electronics show me where each of our…

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Allison Godin was born in 1995 to Dan and Michele Godin in Bemidji, MN. She grew up in the small town of Leonard, Minnesota (population 41) where she enjoyed involvement in her school, church, and community. This spring she graduated from Bemidji State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Nursing. She earned…

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Coho Ascending It would be hard for silver fishing to get faster than it has been for nearly two months. In truth, it has gotten a little more of a hunt and peck game in the last week. That said, limits or near limits have been attained most days and the silvers are showing their…

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The Alaska Department of Fish and Game announced an emergency closure of the king salmon fishery throughout Southeast Alaska, effective midnight August 9. In simple terms – all kings will have to be released unharmed for the rest of the season after Wednesday the 9th. The “extreme management measures” apply to the entire Southeast Region,…

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Senator Lisa Murkowski fished aboard Albatross with Captain Tom on Saturday the 29th. Lisa’s son Nick is a good friend of AU’s Captain Bo Breuner who set up the trip. She travelled all day Friday after a late-night session in the senate to enjoy an excellent day of fishing. She brought two kings (resident…

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We had visitors all the way from the United Kingdom this month. David South, Gill Griffiths and Stephen Hocking made the long flight for four days of Sitka fishing. They enjoyed the calm seas, caught kings, silvers, halibut, lingcod, and a wide assortment of rockfish species. They kept track of each new species of fish…

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Captain Sarah Levar was born in 1988 to Steve and Diane Levar in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. She grew up in northern Minnesota, spending long summer days at the family cabin on the shores of Burntside Lake. There her love of the outdoors and fishing began. She holds a masters degree in Occupational Therapy from the…

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July 2017 reigns as the calmest month we’ve ever seen in Sitka. We went weeks on end fishing a dead calm ocean and the wind only blew a few days during the month. We pretty much ran all over the ocean at full cruising speed. The fishing from the beginning to the end of the…

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Calm Seas, lots of silvers, easy halibut, and a bit more struggle than normal for kings. The pattern of the first half of July continues. How long the extreme calm can last? Who knows, but not forever. It appears the silver run will just keep racing along. The kings remain easy one day, hard the…

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I look at times of the salmon season by which species is the cake and which is the icing. June through at least mid-July, kings are typically the main event – the cake. Silvers are the bonus fish – the icing. The first two weeks of July this year, we’ve had a sort of upside…

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The last 10 days of June have been marked by excellent numbers of silvers and mostly good catches of kings. The king run continues to present the occasional hiccup which seldom lasts more than a day. Even on those days, kings are landed, we just work harder at it. The silvers numbers have been building…

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A guy I know has been fishing king salmon from Washington, through British Columbia and all over Southeast Alaska for over 40 years. Until the early 90’s he cruised the coast in a live-aboard yacht fishing anywhere he wanted. He keeps meticulous records of every fish they catch and his catch rates. After careful…